Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 4.djvu/661

 CRIMINAL ANTHROPOLOGY AND JURISPRUDENCE 64 I

depends largely upon the capability of those individuals who shall have control of the prisoners and shall determine when they are fitted to return. These officials must be removed from the sphere of political influence, and training and qualification made the basis for their appointment. In Italy, France, and Belgium special training schools for prison attendants have been established.

Again, habitual-criminal acts or indeterminate sentence can never operate successfully without a better system of identification than exists in the United States and most of the European countries. The pre- vailing system of photography has been proved inadequate, and the Bertillon system in use in France is recommended as a substitute. Illinois, in connection with its indeterminate-sentence act, authorized the adoption of the Bertillon or a similar system, and to some extent the former has been used."

In the matter of the education of jurists, judges, and attorneys, criminal anthropologists believe that one of the greatest barriers to reform is the present antagonism between jurisprudence and science, particularly medical science. This condition is more nearly true of the United States than of any European country. To obviate this antagonism there is needed a more extended and systematic study of medical jurisprudence and sociology by criminal lawyers, and the separation of criminal and civil courts. Moreover, the knowledge and training of a criminal judge should not be the same as those of a civil judge. It is obvious that the same studies which qualify one for a civil judge do not necessarily qualify one for a criminal judge. The learned jurists in civil law are, in fact, accustomed by their studies to abstractions of humanity, and look solely to judicial bearings, being ignorant of science and thus not fitted to judge human nature. With the American tendency to consolidate courts, it is seemingly an impossi- bility to apprehend such a division. It is also advocated that professors and students of criminal law should have a clinical study of criminals, and efforts are being made to introduce these studies. Both the legal and medical fraternities indorse these propositions.

Carcerial regulations and methods have an interest in this study of law and criminal anthropology, because the success of a scientific system of jurisprudence depends largely upon these methods. If repression and prevention of crime are the objects of punishment, carcerial regula- tions become of the utmost importance, and are also dependent upon

' See McClaughry's translation of Bertillon's System of Identification for a detailed account.